Posts Tagged ‘m/m’

“My name is James; I’m a friend of Mortimer’s.” A pause, not long enough for Judas to respond even if he could place that man just from a first name. “Grouse with a paunch, you, ah, met with him a couple of times.”

Oh. Judas did remember Mortimer. The man had wined and dined him considerably better than he would’ve dared to ask if he’d had a license, much less without, and had insisted on Judas bringing home both their leftovers. He was almost as old as Judas’s father, divorced with two children half Judas’s age if that, and he’d almost, almost, managed to get the polecat to feel like an equal. A good man. One of very few he would’ve even entertained the notion of giving his blessing when asked if he could share his number. So this was the friend he’d had in mind?

Things were no different than any other night, not perceptibly. Judas, as always, could use money or a free meal. The club, as always, had more than enough potential sources of either, if he wasn’t too picky about how he’d come by it. The same way as always; it was a calculated risk every time he went looking to expand his client base. A risk of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, a risk of being asked for a license he didn’t have and couldn’t afford.

Judas closed the textbook he’d been poring over when his phone rang, with barely a glance at the display – he wouldn’t recognize the number anyway – before pressing the button to take the call and lifting it to his ear. He was acutely aware of Ian bent over a sheaf of sheet music a little further over in their shared dorm room, and wasn’t entirely comfortable with the bear’s presence. Not during a call like this. But it wasn’t the first time and if it became the last his time at the university would soon be over, anyway, so he only took care to make sure his side of the conversation was as innocuous as humanly possible.

The blond lay, face-down, on the bed, chin pillowed on his lower arms. His hair, worn longer than that of most people he knew, was white, silky, and lying in a careless sprawl across the sheets and his pale, scar-lined back, and his eyes were half-lidded. The mattress dipped slightly as his partner lay down next to him, ruby-red fur brushing softly against bare skin.

Slowly, the part-raev, part-wyvern ran his fingers up along the human’s spine, his muzzle pressing against the side of the younger man’s neck. “When are you going to talk to me, Roxeen?” His voice was soft, holding as little edge as he could manage. Sometimes there was no telling what the blond would take as an attack, and he didn’t want to drive him off again.

People don’t know me, they assume I’m some don’t-give-a-damn punk. It’s the hair, the piercings, and maybe a little bit the clothes. I don’t dress in ripped band shirts and jeans full of safety pins, but it is enough I have to change when I get to school. I don’t really mind; in high school it kept people off my back. Certainly wasn’t my impressive physique; I’m a scrawny son-of-a-bitch and daylight isn’t too kind on rat fur at the best of times.

Not to him, oh no, it was most definitely not the sort of thing that happened to him. But to other people. It was the sort of thing that happened, now and again. No big deal. Not even the sort of thing one planned on — especially not the sort of thing he planned on, God forbid! — but just the sort of thing that happened. One thing leading to another, and, well… that sort of thing. Exactly that sort of thing. With other people, of course. Not him.

He’d been there for two days, now, and it was finally starting to truly sink in. He was free. His every action wasn’t going to get back to his mother; his stepfather’s iron hand was not going to come down on him if he cast a glance in the wrong direction; he didn’t have to constantly stay on his guard to not slip up. He was, really, free. Free to look and, more importantly, free to do.

The atmosphere at The Rabbit Hole was different. The music was playing, but for its own sake; no mostly-naked dancer was occupying either of the stages. Danil was a fixture behind the bar, as always, the blonde werewolf mixing drinks with a friendly grin, but tonight he took the time to down a bottle of beer of his own every so often, crushing the neck of the glass bottle between his teeth and spitting the shards into the trash can in lieu of using a bottle opener. But the most obvious clue was still probably the dress of the employees and the lack of customers.

When Roxeen became aware again, he felt more than anything like a passenger in his own body. He was sitting, though he’d slumped over to the side, and the chair he was on was vibrating roughly in time with the rumble of an engine. He couldn’t see his surroundings; his eyes were closed and his eyelids didn’t seem to want to obey regardless of how much he tried to open them. Something smelled like lemon, in that vaguely synthetic way that air fresheners and dish soap had in common.